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Tailless Aircraft: How Airplanes Fly Without a Tail

Pilot Institute

A tailless aircraft is a fixed-wing airplane without a horizontal stabilizing surface. With this type of aircraft, the functions of longitudinal stability and control are incorporated into the main wing. A tailless airplane is one where everything needed to fly, like lift, control, and stability, is built into the main wing.

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Mastering Stalls: How to Recognize, Prevent, and Recover Safely

Flight Training Central

Depending on design, airfoils used in general aviation, stall at angles of attack between 16 to 18 degrees. When the airplane is stabilized in the approach attitude and speed, begin to smoothly and slowly bring the nose up to an attitude which will cause a stall. As the airspeed slows into the white arc, extend the wing flaps.

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Flight Test Files: Convair XF-92A Dart

Vintage Aviation News

The delta wing’s large area (425 square feet), thin airfoil cross section, low weight, and structural strength made a great combination for a supersonic aircraft. feet high at the tip of the vertical stabilizer. It was controlled by a conventional rudder and full-span elevons that functioned as elevators and ailerons.

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Mach Number Explained: What It Is and Why Pilots Use It

Pilot Institute

When you reach around 36,000 feet (11,000 m) near the tropopause, the temperature stabilizes at around -56.5 °C. Making the wing relatively flat on top with a blunter leading edge and more curvature on the bottom gives you a supercritical airfoil. As you go higher, the air usually gets colder. roughly) up to about Mach 5.0.

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Flight Test Files: Grumman F-14 Tomcat

Vintage Aviation News

Photo by NASA The impetus for the program came from issues the Navy had encountered with inadvertent spin entries, which were traced back to the aircrafts aileron rudder interconnect system. These glove modifications served to smooth the wing surface and alter the airfoil to achieve specific pressure distributions.

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The Role of Newton’s Third Law in Aviation

Pilot Institute

They are designed with a special shape called an airfoil, which encourages passing air to turn and deflect downward. This is why the typical airfoil shape has a curved top and a flat bottom, especially in slower-speed general aviation aircraft. They work in opposite pairs: when one aileron goes up, the other goes down.

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The Albree Pigeon-Fraser: The First American Fighter

Vintage Aviation News

The Pigeon-Fraser Model SG was powered by a single 100hp Gnme rotary engine, had a length of 24 feet with a wingspan of 37 feet, 11 inches, and its single-set of wings featured a flat-bottomed airfoil. Timson had designed nearly ten years prior.